


Aid and Comfort

by JeannetteRankin



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tarsus IV, teenage!Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeannetteRankin/pseuds/JeannetteRankin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cleaning up and posting some of my old fills from the st:xi kink meme. This one was one of my faves! I love traumatized baby Jim.</p>
<p>The prompt was: "One of the volunteer humanitarian aide workers in the Tarsus IV rescue mission is Amanda Grayson. She takes a particular liking to young Jim Kirk. Lots of angsty fluff worth of Amanda mothering an angry, traumatized young Jim. Maybe teaches him a few languages?"</p>
<p>Originally posted here: http://st-xi-kink-meme.livejournal.com/11004.html?thread=10241788#t10241788</p>
<p>-</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aid and Comfort

Most of the FedAid workers cried at some point. They'd been coached on that, in training. You're probably going to break down emotionally at some point, just from being around that much pain and trauma. If you can, excuse yourself and take a few minutes to let it out, then get back to work.

Amanda had registered with the Federation Emergency Aide Service years ago, and attended the quarterly trainings faithfully. They'd recruited her out of her PhD program, since experts in child psychology were in demand in war and disaster zones. But she'd never been called into service until now.

Amanda had told herself she definitely wasn't going to cry. After all, she was helping, that's what she was there for. And sure, there'd be kids in pain, but she'd had students in pain before, and she'd never come close to a break down.

It was the first day, and she'd been assigned to the team establishing the secondary refugee camp, where the orphans and worst medical cases were sent. Amanda was sent to tag and distribute food to children under 18. She put a microchipped bracelet band on each child and gave them a small ration of protein bar. The wristbands were un-breakable, and couldn't be removed without special equipment; they'd allow the aid workers to track and monitor the children, as well as keep track of who was who. The five other volunteers on Amanda's team then took the children to the group tents to settle them in a spot and supervise their eating.

They begged for more food. Amanda knew, she *knew* they couldn't give the kids more than basic sustenance at first, or it would do more damage. All the workers had had that drilled into them on the voyage. They would eat until they hurt themselves. FedAid workers had seen it happen before to famine victims, and had learned their lesson. But despite the practical reasoning behind it, the pitiful pleas of the children hurt like punches in the gut.

Then, there was one little boy who tried to refuse his wristband. They all hated the bands, seeing them as a symbol of authority, she guessed. They had reason enough to mistrust authority. This one little black-haired boy couldn't have been more than six or seven, and he did *not* want her tagging him. She wished she could just let him do without, but she knew how vital it was for their own safety to have all the kids banded. Eventually, steeling herself, she ripped open a protein bar and waved it at him. 

"None of this until I band you." She made herself be stern, resolutely shoving down the lump that rose in her throat at his tortured expression.

The kid still hesitated. When his starving little stomach couldn't take it anymore, he came up to her, sobbing, and let her put the band. As soon as it was on, he shot her the look of purest betrayal, then snatched the food and ran. She didn't make a move to stop him. One, because the chip in the wrist band would let them track him--that was the whole point--and also, because if she moved or said anything, she would have started sobbing.

Amanda pulled another volunteer to relieve her. She found a nice quiet spot around the back of the farthest storage tent and crouched down, trying to hold in the sobs by tightly clutching her sides. Not that it did any good. She knew, she knew she should stop and get back to work; there was still so much to be done. But every hungry, pained, weary little face she'd seen the whole long miserable day kept popping up in her mind. She had manipulated that boy, forced him, really. How was she any better than the members of the Blue Guard who had restricted access to the food stores with the butts of their rifles?

She didn't hear anyone coming up, so was shocked when an arm came around her shoulders.

It was one of the kids from earlier. About fourteen, he'd been the first to walk voluntarily into the camp, a small band of younger children trailing behind him.

"Oh, sorry," she said, straightening up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb anyone."

"It's okay. I understand." He looked up at her with too-wise eyes under a mop of blond hair.

"I don't know about that," she searched her memory and pulled up his name. "I don't know if you do, Jim." She knew he meant to be kind, but she didn't like anyone see her like this. She'd get him back to his assigned tent, then get back to work.

"You feel guilty because you can't help more, and because sometimes you have to hurt people to help them. Then you feel worse for breaking down when you should be staying strong for the kids," he told her in a nonchalant voice. The words stabbed her right in the heart. Who the hell was this kid to tell her what she was feeling?

"You're only fourteen. What do you know?" As soon as the angry words came out of her mouth, she knew it was a mistake.

The boy pulled away and seemed to shrink in on himself. He gave her a brittle shrug and walked away.

"Damn, damn, damn," she told herself as she watched him retreat through the tents. With a deep heart-felt sigh, Amanda scrubbed her face with her hands and went back to work.

***

"What can I do?" He raised his eyebrows and threw her own words back at her. "After all, I'm *only* fourteen." 

Amanda was torn between yelling at him and laughing at his impertinence. She did neither. "You're the only one they trust. The little kids don't like adults. They're extremely traumatized, and they're far more likely to listen to someone who's been through the same thing they have. We still don't have idents for more than a dozen of them. They may answer questions from you. They refuse to answer any questions about their background or parents to us."

"Well, what do you expect?" She was shocked by the flare of answer he showed in reply. He'd studiously avoided any show of real emotion up 'til now.

"What do you mean?"

"Of course they're not going to answer questions about their background." He seemed to get the anger reigned in. The fake cocky grin she was used to reappeared, though tinged with a world-weariness she hated. "Those are the same kind of questions the Blues used to decide who qualified to stay alive."

"Oh." Dear Lord. She'd heard that Kodos had enforced some kind of eugenics program. She just couldn't imagine it, even after all she'd seen the last few days. What kind of monster could actually kill a child based on their answers to interrogation? What had those guards been thinking, she wondered. Had they looked the children in the eyes as they pulled the trigger? "I didn't realize. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, lady."

"My name is Amanda, Jim, you know that."

"Yeah, well." They sunk into silence. But Jim didn't walk away. Hopefully that meant he wasn't totally disgusted with her.

"So, we can't ask them questions about their parents, their families, their origins, or their education. Not even coming from you?" He shook his head. Amanda groaned in frustration. "So, without any identifying questions, do you have any ideas for how I can identify them?" She was joking, trying to break the remaining tension and keep him talking.

But he got a thoughtful look on his face. "DNA testing?" He asked.

She shook her head. "I wish we had their DNA on file. If we did, we could ident all of them in seconds. The colony databanks were damaged. Data recovery experts might be able to restore it, but it's pretty far down on the priority list. Could take months, believe me, I asked."

"Doesn't Earth have records from the original colonists?" That was a surprisingly good idea.

"Good thought, but no. After the Denebian bombing, a special act was passed by Earth Gov preventing centralized collection of data about outbound colonists. Re-constructing the original colonists list and getting their genetic code would be a massive research effort. It would probably take longer than fixing the memory banks!" Amanda sighed in frustration. "I just don't think we can get our hands on the genetic information. Some of these kids surely have relatives back on Earth, and we're relying on piecemeal family requests to try and match them up. Not to mention we don't have medical records for them at all! What a mess."

"It's important?" He asked her. She wondered again at the strange understanding of this young man. All the kids seemed too old for their years--trauma will do that. But this was different.

"It's vital," she told him.

He clapped his hands and rubbed them together like he was about to get to work on a tough project. "Right. I'll take care of it for you."

"You'll what? What are you going to do?" He just chuckled enigmatically and slipped away. Just then Amanda got an urgent request from one of her team and was pulled away. She could only hope Jim's plan, whatever it was, would produce some useful results.

***

"You unbanded them?!" Amanda could only blink, aghast, as Jim nodded with a self-satisfied smile.

"Yup! And here," he held out a PADD, which she took without noticing. "A list of their names, and as much as I could get about their parents, where they were born, and any other relatives, all matched with the DNA profile of each, so when they come back, you can ident them right away."

"When they come back? They're all GONE?" She was going to have a heart attack. "Jim, Jim, why did you do this?" She let her anger show.

His self-satisfaction dimmed a little. "It was the only way to get the information: to trade the one thing they wanted, to get rid of the bands. And--"

"Never mind," She cut him off, wanting, for the first time in her memory, to smack a child--this one. "I have to go call in the corps commander to get a search team out here. How many are gone?" She used her harshest teacher-voice on him, and it had the desired result.

"Eighteen." He said in a smaller voice. "But they'll be fine, I told you, they'll come back on their own when they need food--"

"Enough!" She cut him off again. "They will *not* be fine out there. Do you know how many small children died during the famine just from accidents and injuries while running away? I don't have time to have this discussion right now, but we *will* be talking about this later, Jim." She glared. He looked down.

Amanda nearly ran to the com unit to alert the corps.

***

"What are you going to do, punish me?" He asked, defensive arrogance fully in place.

"Punish you beyond surviving a famine and a civil war? Punishment would be pretty much moot. But I would like you to come with me to visit the kids we hauled back. One is still missing, and the rest are pretty traumatized."

He closed his eyes and grimaced.

"No, no," she clarified. "You're *not* responsible for that. We're the ones who hunted down and sedated terrorized kids. Not your choice. And we'll find the missing one. But they might appreciate a visit from you."

"They'll think I broke my word to them." He said with less cockiness than usual.

She only raised an eyebrow at him. "Jim, I understand why you did what you did. However, you made promises to them you *couldn't* keep. Are you going to run away from them because of it?"

"Whatever. Sure, I'll go see them. They can't take back their side of the bargain now, anyway. As long as you still have that data I gave you?"

"Yes, and thank you for that, by the way, it's a great help. Even if you chose the most boneheaded way of getting it."

"Like you were doing any better," he muttered.

Jim followed her to the tent where the re-banded, chastened youngsters were corralled. One of the kids had broken her leg in the forest running in the dark. After seeing the rest and answering their accusations with sharp but not cruel rebuffs, he sat with the broken-legged girl for half an hour. She was only eight, and was still so terrified of guards of any kind, she hadn't said a word since they'd dragged her back to camp. Poor thing had really had it rough. Jim was surprisingly good with her.

In fact, for the next two days, Jim proved just how useful he could be. He trailed Amanda around the camp most of the time, assisting her unobtrusively with everything from soothing the younger kids to supply requisitions. She reprimanded him sharply once or twice when he let his smart mouth get away from him to the volunteer workers, but it didn't scare him off.

During meals and rest periods, he usually sat with her. After discovering she was fluent in Vulcan, he started getting her to teach him words. They waited anxiously for reports from the searchers for any news of the still-missing kid, an 11-year-old boy. With each hour that passed, their hope got fainter, but Amanda still shared each update with Jim, even as they were increasingly grim. She was sorry she'd let loose on him for letting the kids go, the way things were looking. At the time it'd seemed the only way to impress on him the seriousness of his actions, but now she was worried what would happen to him if they never got any news of the missing boy.

At the end of the second day, they finally got news. A search team had found the body of an eleven year old a few miles from camp.

This time it was Jim who cried, though only a little. And though he didn't let Amanda touch him, she sat with him, then stayed up all night with him as he cleaned and re-organized their medical supply tent. At last he fell into an exhausted sleep after working flat out for sixteen hours.

The next day, Amanda told him again it wasn't his fault. She couldn't tell, but maybe he believed her.


End file.
